First Friday Feature with Denisea Kampe

byJessicaonJuly 3, 2015

Let’s ” Welcome Denisea Kampe to usher in July with our First Friday Feature! Wow! Where does the time go? As you are celebrating Independence Day this weekend… Keep in your thoughts or prayers not only the military men and women that serve, but their families that sacrifice as well. I most recently read Denisea’s book For His Country. That book is a great depiction of the strain that is put on the entire military family. It’s not just our soldiers that sacrifice but the one’s who love them and call the mom, dad, wife, or husband. Denisea is going to tell us a little more about it from her first-hand experience.

Life as a Wife…

Thank you so much, Jessica, for asking me to guest here on Writing Pearls today and thank youto her followers for spending a few minutes here today getting to know me and my work a bitbetter. I just recently met Jessica face to face as due to my husband’s occupation we’re currently stationed in her neck of the woods, one of the perks of being a wife to a US Marine.

We travel…a LOT. But I get to see so many places and do so many things others only dreamabout, and I get to meet tons of new people. It’s especially exciting when I meet other writersand bloggers who I share something in common with. The military is such a cornucopia, but…

Not everything is roses, sometimes you get the thorns.

Years ago when I became a bride to the Corps, what was then known as the Key VolunteerNetwork (KVN), greeted me with open arms and my very own copy of Roses and Thorns, ahandy guide to all things being a wife meant at that time and is sadly no longer in publication.

Things have changed significantly since I married my very own knight in dusty cammies and while I understand the manual became obsolete in some areas, it still offered insightful advice and information concerning so many aspects of military life. It prepared one for what to expect at formal functions, how to present yourself for tea with the senior wives, how to decipher acronyms and jargon, and how to prepare for the inevitable…deployments.

I can attest to, however, no amount of words in a book truly prepares one for long periods apart, explaining to the kids where Daddy is, the things you’ll see on the news and wish you hadn’t, sleeping alone, crying in the closet so no one sees, or the changes that occur. Those words explained those things, but they don’t truly prepare you for any of it, particularly the changes part of the show. And that premise is what lead me to write For His Country, the book Jessica so graciously reviewed for me today, the changes.

Change is a perpetual state of motion. It’s fluid, continually redefining its boundaries. Theweather changes, the landscape changes, the living room furniture gets moved, kids grow andso do adults. People are in a constant state of change. They grow older, their features fluctuatewith weight gain, graying hair, and fine lines. Their hopes and dreams and goals alter over theyears to accommodate new interests and redefined careers. Much like the main characters in

For His Country, Ray and Gavin, we changed, as well. After living through the height of OIF andOEF, MarshFox and I had been separated due to deployment a total of over six years out ofnine. The three years we lived under the same roof came in snatches of a few weeks at a time.

Then the deployment cycle slowed, and he came home, and…

We had changed.

Changed to the point for us it was like living with a stranger. He’d changed, I’d changed, our nest had emptied while he was away, I’d gained and lost the same forty pounds, he’d gotten the first hints of salt and pepper temples, we’d lost one of our beloved dogs we’d adopted together years ago, and only two weeks after he came home “for good” (nothing is truly for good in the military) we had to let our second beloved doggy go home to be with her brother because she’d been suffering from cancer for six months and I’d been babying her along and keeping her comfortable hoping she’d make it to see Daddy just one more time.

In short, we were flat aback with the rudder flailing and a hole in our sail. I didn’t know him from Adam and I was definitely not the Eve he’d left behind.

Where do you go from there?

There are only two answers. You either throw in the towel and become a statistic to the sadistic mistress the Corps is, or you dig in, define your perimeter, and you fight. It was in the aftermath of us deciding to fight, For His Country was born. I can remember sleepless nights, words tossed at each other we could never take back, tears…and the phone call. The call where MarshFox finally figured out what I had known for so long. We were married strangers and had to either discover each other all over again or we were doomed.

That was the day he asked me out on our “first date.” After all, isn’t that the way couples looking for a mate for life do it? Learn who the other is? By dating?

That’s been five years ago. We’re still dating. Because change is a state of perpetual motion. It ‘s fluid, continually redefining its boundaries. And we have to move with it or stand still and lose sight of where we’re going and who we’re going there with.Living life as a wife hasn’t always been easy. There have been good times and bad, many lonely nights, and tears, but I wouldn’t trade a single minute for anything in the world. I love MarshFox and I’m pretty sure we’ll be dating when we’re ninety even if that means we meet in the dining hall of some retirement home someday for applesauce cups, and we’ll keep changing, together for better or worse.

Thank you again for spending some time with me here today. If you have any questions for me, feel free to leave me a comment. I’d be happy to chat it up with you. If you’d like to keep up with me after today you can find me at my blog, Ubiquitous Musings, on Facebook, or on my sister site, Script Chics. You can find my works available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Thank you so much Denisea! We must do coffee soon before you move away! One of the downsides of having military friends is they do have to move often. The upside? Your friends move all over the world and you get to go visit them!